one dollar’s worth of early season organic blueberries from california

one dollar’s worth of shurfine flour

one dollar’s worth of shurfine white bread

Would you rather eat ten organic blueberries or three mounds of mystery meat? Jonathan Blaustein photography project The Value of a Dollar displays what a buck-worth of food is in northern New Mexico. $1 bread loaf and $1 ramen tower – the food is stripped from the artifice of styling, retouching and lighting – it is what it is.

Food is clearly a potent symbol of wealth, power, health, and globalization for the 21st Century. Its value is determined by the price of oil, its transnational transport contributes to Global Warming, its ingredients entice America into obesity, and its production processes animals into floss and mush.

Ah, so… Whether or not it’s food, if we put it in our mouth it makes the world go ’round?